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Google now allows you to search by combining images and words

2022-04-07T21:32:48.220Z


Google wants to make it easy to find things that are difficult to describe with just a few words or an image.


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(CNN Business) --

Google wants to make it easier to find things that are difficult to describe with just a few words or an image.

On Thursday, Google launched a new search option that allows you to combine text and images in a single query.

With this feature, you can search for a shirt similar to the one in a photo, but write that you want it with "polka dots", or take a photo of your sofa and write "chair" to find one that looks like it.

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The feature, which the company calls "multiple search" and which was shown in preview in September, is now available to US users in the Google Lens part of the Google mobile app.

Liz Reid, vice president of Google Search, told CNN Business that the feature will be considered experimental at first.

It is expected to initially be used for shopping-related searches, though it is not limited to such queries.

"This will be just the beginning," Reid said.

Multisearch marks Google's latest effort to make search more flexible and less limited to words on a screen.

Google has long offered an image search engine.

There's also Google Lens, a feature that debuted in 2017 that can identify objects in an image or immediately translate text as seen through a phone's camera lens.

Another effort in 2020 gave users the option to hum a song to search for it.

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How does the new multisearch mode work?

To find multiple searches on the Google mobile app, you need to tap on a camera icon on the right side of the search bar, which opens Google Lens.

You can take or upload a photo and then tap a small bar that contains a plus sign and the phrase "add to your search."

This allows you to write words to better explain what you want.

https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/220401150153-desktop-google-multisearch.mp4

The multisearch mode essentially works by using artificial intelligence in various ways.

Computer vision deduces what is in the image, while natural language processing determines the meaning of the words you type.

Those results are then put together to train an overall system, Reid said.

When Google introduced this type of search in September, the company explained that it would use a powerful machine learning tool called MUM (which stands for "unified multitasking model") that it introduced last May.

Reid said in an interview last week that this won't be the case at first, but that he may use MUM in the coming months, which he said he believes will help improve search quality.

Asked if Google will eventually make it possible for people to use search in even more varied ways, such as combining music and words in a query to find new kinds of music, Reid said the company isn't working on that specifically, but that is interested in combining several contributions in the future.

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Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-04-07

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